By all accounts, Rosemary was a beautiful baby. According to at least one of her uncles, Rosemary was the most beautiful baby he had ever seen.

One morning, just a few months after Rosemary's birth, John and Regina were driving on rout 127, just south of Celina. They were near the lake in Celina when they were hit by another car. Regina, holding Rosemary on her lap (the first child safety seat wasn't invented until 1962, a quarter of a century later), flew through the window and suffered a compound fracture of her left knee, head injuries, and numerous lacerations and bruises. Because of Regina's serious knee injury, the doctors told her she may never walk again. Rosemary fared much worse with a head injury and skull fractures secondary to the crash. She was crying after the accident and, according to Regina, she sounded like a kitten not a baby. She also had nystagmus, a neurological condition that happens with brain damage. Rosemary died soon thereafter at the hospital. The driver of the other car who cut off John Albers, hitting the front part of the car and throwing the Albers' car into the ditch, never stopped and was never found. Regina walked again but she was never the same emotionally. In later life Regina was also plagued by mobility issues despite knee replacement surgery.

Other drivers came upon the scene and took the Albers in their cars to the hospital. The steering wheel prevented John Albers from being ejected from the car and therefore, his injuries were the least serious.

When John and Regina were in their seventies or eighties they bought a new and better toumbstone for Rosemary, the baby they never stopped missing and loving.

From THE MINSTER POST Friday, June 25, 1973:

A SMALL BABE VICTIM OF AN AUTO MISHAP _______________Along National Highway 127 on Friday Morning of Last Week _______________ HAD HIS (HER) SKULL CRUSHED _______________And Passed Away At A Hospital Three Hours After The Accident _______________

On Friday afternoon of last week the N.J. Hogenkamp Sons, Minster morticians, were called to Celina to take care of the body of a Rosemary Albers, a small child who died at the Gibbons hospital in that city following a motor accident. The babe sustained a fractured skull and other injuries when the car in which she was riding with her parents was knocked into the ditch by another car that was driven recklessly over national rout 127.

The Albers car was moving in a southerly direction and while it was rounding a curve south of Celina in the immediate vicinity of the waste weir of Lake Grand it was swiped about the front parts by another car that was also moving in a southerly course. The Albers car was struck with such force that it was bounced into the ditch and the riders were held fast until other motorists went to their help. The diver of the passing car did not stop, however, and no person was able to tell anything about him.

Mr. and Mrs. Albers were also riding in the car and the party was returning to their home in Gaudeloupe, following a shopping visit in Celina. The accident occurred at about 10:30 o'clock and the child died in the hospital about three hours later.

When the three persons arrived at the hospital physicians found that Mrs. Albers was also pretty severely injured. She received a compound fracture of the left knee, lacerations of her arm and head and and numerous bruises and cuts. Mr. Albers has a puncture wound in his forehead. The body was taken to the home where it rested until Monday morning when interment was made in the Gaudeloupe cemetery.

The babe was the only child in the Albers family and it was born on March 9, 1937, the daughter of John Albers and Regina Bergman Albers. She met the untimely death at the age of three months and nine days and besides her parents is survived by both paternal and maternal grandparents who are Mr. and Mrs. Henry Albers at Maria Stein and Mr. and Mrs. Frank Bergman at St. Rose. The funeral was held at the Gaudeoplupe church and the Mass was intoned by Rev. Louis Pottkoetter, C. PP. S.

The father was able to leave the hospital on Friday afternoon but the mother is still a patient there.

Rosemary's parents, John and Regina Albers, were driving when she was a baby. It was the days before car seats and car safety so Rosemary was sitting on Regina's lap in the front seat. Their car was hit by a hit and run driver. Rosemary and Regina were ej...(Read more)-
A. ChroniclerAdded: Apr. 3, 2011